India's strategic autonomy and its role in a rebalanced global order

Ambassador Sujan Chinoy's book explores India's evolving global strategy, the impact of geopolitical shifts, and the importance of self-reliance in defence and diplomacy

Global Tumult: India as a Pole Star

Author: Sujan Chinoy 

Publisher:  Rupa

Pages: 288

Price: Rs 395

In these uncertain times, several countries, big and small, are pursuing strategic autonomy — that is, to exercise options and choices in order to fulfill their national objectives independently. But the ability to do so largely hinges on the deterrent capabilities they develop over time. With a rebalancing of the global order underway, the choices India makes will be contingent on the structures and capacities it can build, veteran diplomat and strategic analyst Ambassador Sujan Chinoy explains in his book Global Tumult – India as a Pole Star .

India, no doubt, is poised to play a bigger role on the international stage, Ambassador Chinoy asserts.  He substantiates this claim by highlighting what India had delivered through the New Delhi Leaders’ Declaration during its G20 presidency.  The declaration, he writes, forged a new consensus on global challenges in an open, consultative and democratic manner, putting the issues of the Global South at the forefront of the global discourse. India’s low-cost solutions in the form of Digital Public Infrastructure, Mission LiFE and women-led development and initiatives such as the International Solar Alliance, the Biofuel Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor and so on are transformative, he believes, with the potential to enhance choices and options for the Global South beyond the binary of superpower rivalry.

The author reasons that the parallel rise of the world’s most populous nations with economic heft — India alongside China — with sharpening differences between a liberal democracy and an authoritarian regime makes it incumbent on multilateral institutions to make necessary adjustments.  He adds that much-needed reform is unlikely to happen unless preceded by a major crisis. Historically, the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Trade Organization and so on were created with a sense of immediacy.  Similarly, the G20 was established in 1999 following the global financial crisis of 1997.  Current global crises on multiple fronts — the Covid pandemic, the Russia–Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas conflict, tensions in the South China Sea, climate change , the debt burden — have all exposed the fragilities of the UN systems, signalling urgency for reform.

The security challenges on account of the rise of a belligerent China have been covered insightfully in the book. Ambassador Chinoy attributes China’s rise to the original sin of Henry Kissinger who believed that China’s economic prosperity would pave the way for democracy.   This naivety, he observes, lacked a genuine historical perspective of China that eventually went on to tilt the balance of power in its favour with unintended consequences for South Asia, especially India. He points out that the US’s relentless accommodation of China bestowed on it a global role after 1945 as it went on to secure Permanent Membership of UNSC in 1971, and WTO membership in 2001.  Since, in an increasingly globalised world, it may be impractical to decouple from China, Ambassador Chinoy advises India to adopt a policy of strategic autonomy that is imbued with expedient alignments when the situation demands, such as in 1962 and 1971 in the face-off with China and Pakistan respectively.

 Geopolitics and geo-economics are more inseparable than ever before, the author points out.  He provides a historical perspective on how colonial powers, especially the British East India company, established trading posts with extraterritorial rights, leading to military subjugation of local rulers. Whether it is the flag that follows trade or vice versa, the fact is that they are coterminous in scope and intent.  China’s Belt and Road Initiative should be seen through that lens, he underlines.

In all these ventures the state continues to be a strong factor, a fact that holds equally true for either democracies or authoritarian regimes.  The author cautions that technology will be a game changer in future conflicts; the advent of artificial intelligence, facial recognition technologies, 3-D printing will make wars of attrition prolonged, expensive and cause immense damage to property and lives. The author underscores the growing importance of Indo-US relations, describing it as sui generis, anchored in the changes unfolding within a geo-strategic arc with a shared objective of ensuring stability and multi-polarity in Asia and in the broader Indo-Pacific region.  Given the gravity of these bilateral relations, he strongly urges the need for the US to inject clarity on its position on India’s boundary dispute with China and reject its specious claims. Active cooperation in trade, critical minerals, intellectual property rights, and the Quad need to be prioritised in order to de-risk the overdependence on China-driven supply chains. It is in the US’ larger interest that India remains robust, with a strong economy and nuclear deterrent capabilities, to enable the country to contribute to multi-polarity in the Indo Pacific. 

Ambassador Chinoy’s advocacy for India to be self-reliant in defence through Atmanirbhar Bharat draws lessons from the 1962 war; when help finally came, it was too late and too meagre. He rightly points out that the choices that India makes internationally will be increasingly interrelated to the domestic front, a reflection of the continuum of our foreign and security policy. In other words, it is India’s time-tested policy of non-alignment that has evolved in sync with current times.

The reviewer is a serving Indian Foreign Service officer